About 10 days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon, and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military, and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the secretary of defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

The following are remarks at the memorial for Bob Parry delivered on Saturday by Brian Barger, who shared many bylines with Bob (and a drink or two) at the Associated Press, uncovering the Iran-Contra scandal, and provoking the ire of AP editors, nervous about what the two friends were finding out.

By Brian Barger

I remember it was a pleasure to meet Bob in 1984. The CIA was ramping up its covert war in Nicaragua. News reports from the region documented atrocities committed by President Reagan’s “freedom fighters” and their CIA handlers. Congress was starting to take notice, and was threatening to cut off US aid.

I got a call from Betsy Cohn, a Latin America scholar from Georgetown University, saying I should meet this guy from the AP. Over lunch we shared notes. I’d done much of my reporting from Central America and Miami, and Bob from Washington. We agreed there was a lot of low-hanging fruit on this story, and we talked about why there was such reluctance to cover it, particularly among the Washington press corps. We agreed that this could be a good reporting partnership.

And it was in these early days that I learned some important lessons about journalism from Bob.

It started over that lunch, when Bob politely reminded me that I’d buried the lede in a recent story that should have received wide attention – but didn’t. This was Bob Parry journalism lesson number one: Don’t bury the lede.

The story was about a blue, cloth-covered manual produced by the CIA and distributed to contra commanders in Honduras. Bob wanted a copy. So, Bob Parry journalism lesson Number Two: Be persistent. I gave it to him, and Bob produced a deeply reported piece on what thereafter was known as the CIA assassination manual. Lesson number three: Make those ten extra phone calls before calling it a day.

This was the beginning of an enduring friendship that lasted 35 years. It was also the beginning of an enduring work relationship. Over the next two years, we peeled back the story about White House aide Oliver North and the White House role orchestrating a secret war in Nicaragua.

For the rest of the story: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/16/it-started-over-lunch-and-ended-with-the-exposure-of-one-of-the-greatest-scandals-in-u-s-history/

Currently, Saleh v. Bush is on appeal before the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Saleh’s lawsuit in federal court against US government leaders named as Defendants — George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz — was dismissed in December 2014 after the district court immunized the Defendants, ruling they were acting within the lawful scope of their employment when they planned and executed the Iraq War.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair shaking hands with Defendant-Appellee George W. Bush.

Ms. Saleh is arguing on appeal that the Defendants should not be immunized. She alleges that the Defendants were acting from personally held convictions that the US should invade Iraq, regardless of any legitimate policy reasons. Specifically, she is pointing to a record of statements made by some of the Defendants in leading neoconservative outlets in which they called for the military overthrow of the Hussein regime as early as 1997.

She is also arguing that Bush administration officials knowingly lied to the public by fraudulently tying Hussein to Al Qaida and the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Such misrepresentations would also make them personally liable for their conduct under relevant law.

The Ninth Circuit has not indicated when it will issue a ruling on the appeal.

What is the Chilcot Report?

The Chilcot Report is the final report issued by the Iraq Inquiry, a committee established by the British Government in 2009 to investigate what happened during the run up to the Iraq War. Composed of British “privy counsellors,” the report was released on July 6, 2016 after more than 6 years of investigation, research, and drafting.

Why is the Chilcot Report important to the Saleh v. Bush lawsuit?

The Chilcot Report contains (i) factual conclusions by the privy counsellors about what happened during the run up to the Iraq War, (ii) actual documentation (including written notes between Blair and Bush) that show a plan to go to war in Iraq as early as October 2001, and (iii) statements of international law by distinguished experts who have concluded that the Iraq War was illegal and constituted aggression against Iraq.

What are some of the pieces of evidence submitted to the Ninth Circuit?

These are some of the excerpts that we highlighted for the Ninth Circuit as evidence that the Iraq War was illegal, and that government leaders were not acting within the lawful scope of their employment authority when they planned and executed the Iraq War:

Conclusions of the Iraq Inquiry Committee:

President Bush decided at the end of 2001 to pursue a policy of regime change in Iraq.

On 26 February 2002, Sir Richard Dearlove, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, advised that the US Administration had concluded that containment would not work, was drawing up plans for a military campaign later in the year, and was considering presenting Saddam Hussein with an ultimatum for the return of inspectors while setting the bar “so high that Saddam Hussein would be unable to comply.”

Mr Straw’s advice of 25 March proposed that the US and UK should seek an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to re-admit weapons inspectors. That would provide a route for the UK to align itself with the US without adopting the US objective of regime change. This reflected advice that regime change would be unlawful.

Sir Richard Dearlove reported that he had been told that the US had already taken a decision on action – “the question was only how and when;” and that he had been told it intended to set the threshold on weapons inspections so high that Iraq would not be able to hold up US policy.

Conclusions of the Iraq Inquiry Committee related to the legal analysis of the British government leading up to the war:

Despite being told that advice was not needed for Mr Blair’s meeting with President Bush on 31 January, Lord Goldsmith wrote on 30 January to emphasise that his view remained that resolution 1441 did not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the Security Council.

Mr Wood had warned Mr Straw on 24 January that “without a further decision by the Council, and absent extraordinary circumstances”, the UK would not be able lawfully to use force against Iraq.

Mr Wood wrote that Kosovo was “no precedent”: the legal basis was the need to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe; no draft resolution had been put to the Security Council; and no draft had been vetoed. He hoped there was: “… no doubt in anyone’s mind that without a further decision of the Council, and absent extraordinary circumstances (of which at present there is no sign), the United Kingdom cannot lawfully use force against Iraq to ensure compliance with its SCR WMD obligations. To use force without Security Council authority would amount to the crime of aggression.”

Lord Goldsmith recognised that there was a possibility of a legal challenge

Underlying statements and facts relied on by the Iraq Inquiry Committee

I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law. In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorized by the Security Council, and had no other legal basis in international law.

I regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal, and I therefore did not feel able to continue in my post. I would have been required to support and maintain the Government’s position in international fora. The rules of international law on the use of force by States are at the heart of international law. Collective security, as opposed to unilateral military action, is a central purpose of the Charter of the United Nations. Acting contrary to the Charter, as I perceived the Government to be doing, would have the consequence of damaging the United Kingdom’s reputation as a State committed to the rule of law in international relations and to the United Nations.

This process of exaggeration was gradual, and proceeded by accretion and editing from document to document, in a way that allowed those participating to convince themselves that they were not engaged in blatant dishonesty. But this process led to highly misleading statements about the UK assessment of the Iraqi threat that were, in their totality, lies.

I have no doubt we need to deal with Saddam. But if we hit Iraq now, we would lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half of the EU …

However, I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date. My suggestion is, in order to give ourselves space that we say: phase 1 is the military action focused on Afghanistan because it’s there that perpetrators of 11 September hide. Phase 2 is the medium and longer term campaign against terrorism in all its forms. …

(Mr. Blair was apparently discussing with Defendant-Appellee Bush regime change in Iraq just one month after the attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. Mr. Blair’s suggestion for “phase 1” of the U.S.-U.K. strategy on the war on terrorism to first direct military action toward “Afghanistan because it’s there that perpetrators of 11 September hide,” further supports allegations that U.S. officials used an unrelated terrorist attack to execute a pre-existing plan of regime change in Iraq. Mr. Blair then went on to discuss a “phase 2” that would include invading Iraq).

Iraq is a threat because it has WMD capability … But any link to 11 September and AQ [Al Qaeda] is at best very tenuous; and at present international opinion would be reluctant, outside the US/UK, to support immediate military action … So we need a strategy for regime change that builds over time. …

(This note supports allegations that U.S. government leaders were aware that Iraq had no link to the 9/11 attacks or Al Qaeda and support allegations that U.S. government leaders made false statements to the public about the threat Iraq posed, or its connection to Al Qaeda, in order to support a war and satisfy personally-held objectives of regime change that had no legitimate policy underpinning)

The Evidence. Again, I have been told the US thinks this unnecessary. But we still need to make the case. If we recapitulate all the WMD evidence; add his attempts to secure nuclear capability; and, as seems possible, add on Al Qaida link, it will be hugely persuasive over here.

(This note confirms that U.S. government official’s intent to invade Iraq was well-formed by July 2002. Mr. Blair’s July 2002 note to George W. Bush observed that U.S. officials thought evidence supporting regime change was “unnecessary” and that an “Al Qaida link” could be simply be tacked onto government messaging in order to sell the war).

Statements by legal experts who have concluded that the Iraq War was illegal

A second Security Council resolution specifically and unambiguously authorising military action was required. The vague warning of ‘serious consequences’ in resolution 1441 did not suffice, and to interpret resolution 678 as granting the necessary authority was not ‘good faith’ interpretation as required by international law. Without such a resolution, the invasion of Iraq constituted an act of aggression, contrary to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

What happens next?

The Department of Justice has indicated that it will oppose the filing of these portions from the Chilcot Report with the Ninth Circuit. We will circulate the DOJ opposition once it has been filed.

‘Operation Desert Storm’, the massive air and missile aggression on Iraq was launched on January 17, 1991 at 2:30 a.m. local time.

That night as we were watching the TV, the programme was suddenly interrupted and we saw pictures of the Baghdad sky illuminated with what seemed to be anti-aircraft fire; we realized with horror that the war on Iraq had started. We stayed up all night, terrified, watching with dismay how beautiful Baghdad, the city of One Thousand and One Nights, was being massively bombarded.

Our thoughts and prayers were for our relatives and friends and for all Iraqis who could not escape from this hell. How many would die under the bombs and missiles which were falling ‘at random’ on residential areas all over Baghdad and other Iraqi cities?

I still shudder when remembering that awful night and all the other terrible nights of the ‘First Gulf War’, there was no possibility to communicate with our loved ones in Iraq, the U.S.’s first targets had been the telecommunication centres and electrical grid on which they had dropped Tungsten bombs. Iraqis were completely isolated, alone, desperately alone…in the dark…in the chaos, amidst the destruction caused by these brutal attacks from the air.

We watched in dismay how the beautiful country that many generations of Iraqis had worked so hard to build and develop was being destroyed. We watched with horror how the American and British ‘boys’ cheered whenever their bombs hit some ‘target’, killing Iraqis. No doubt that George Bush was enjoying it too, ‘bringing Iraq back to pre-industrial era’.

USAF F-117 : vampire in the Iraqi sky

Many Americans thought it was right to attack Iraq, they had no qualms that the country’s civil infrastructure was being purposely destroyed and that many thousands of Iraqis were dying. They believed the coalition troops were attacking Iraq to ‘liberate’ Kuwait* and to prevent an Iraqi attack on the zionist entity.

Some westerners who had never met an Iraqi and who could not even locate Iraq on the map, were filled with hatred towards the Iraqi people, because they had been told ‘how Iraqi soldiers were taking premature babies out of incubators in Kuwait’ !!! (1) and some other terrible stories fabricated by the western media,. Others were so gullible that they really believed there was such a thing as the ‘Iraqi Super canon’!!!

The western media were the accomplices of the warmongers, continuously diffusing their lies and propaganda. According to Fair,the US media allowed less than 1% of their space to those who were opposed the war. Day after day they repeated George Bush’s mantra: ‘about establishing a New World Order’ and many people in the west believed that the destruction of Iraq was worthwhile to establish this so-called ‘New World Order’.

Seventeen years have passed, but the pain and outrage I felt that night have not diminished, neither has my resentment towards all those who participated in this criminal aggression on Iraq.

George Bush, Dan Quayle, James Baker, Dick Cheney, William Webster, Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and many others who share responsibility in attacking and destroying Iraq still remain to be judged for crimes against peace, for war crimes, for crimes against humanity and for other criminal acts committed in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, in violation of the international law, in violation of the Conventions of Geneva and The Hague, in violation of the Charter of Nürenberg and in violation of the laws regulating armed conflicts. By waging this illegal war on Iraq George Bush also violated the Constitution of the United States.

Bush’s imperialist ‘New World Order’ was based on the capitulation and submission of the people in the Middle East, principally on the surrender of oil-rich Iraq.

On this sad seventeenth anniversary of the launching of the criminal aggression on Iraq my thoughts are with all Iraqi patriots who are fighting to free their country from the foreign occupiers.

On this day, one of the beautiful Irish patriotic song comes into my mind (I have substituted the name Ireland with Iraq)

Come the day and come the hour

Come the power and the glory

We have come to answer

Our Country’s call

From all the provinces of Iraq

Iraq, Iraq,

Together standing tall

Shoulder to shoulder

We’ll answer Iraq’s call

Hearts of steel

And heads unbowing

Vowing never to be broken

We will fight, until

We can fight no more

From all the provinces of Iraq

(1) It was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador in the US who made these false accusations in front of the cameras, pretending to be a Kuwaiti nurse who had witnessed these barbaric acts!!!

*Kuwait: an invention of the British Foreign Office ‘around an oil well ‘ to deny Iraq access to the sea and so limit its influence in the Gulf and maintain it under British dependence.

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
— U.S. Major General Smedley Butler

As Lee Fang writes: The possibility of an Iran nuclear deal depressing weapons sales was raised by Myles Walton, an analyst from Germany’s Deutsche Bank, during a Lockheed earnings call this past January 27. Walton asked Marillyn Hewson, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, if an Iran agreement could “impede what you see as progress in foreign military sales.” Financial industry analysts such as Walton use earnings calls as an opportunity to ask publicly-traded corporations like Lockheed about issues that might harm profitability.

Hewson replied that “that really isn’t coming up,” but stressed that “volatility all around the region” should continue to bring in new business. According to Hewson, “A lot of volatility, a lot of instability, a lot of things that are happening” in both the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region means both are “growth areas” for Lockheed Martin.

The Deutsche Bank-Lockheed exchange “underscores a longstanding truism of the weapons trade: war — or the threat of war — is good for the arms business,” says William Hartung, director of the Arms & Security Project at the Center for International Policy. Hartung observed that Hewson described the normalization of relations with Iran not as a positive development for the future, but as an “impediment.” “And Hewson’s response,” Hartung adds, “which in essence is ‘don’t worry, there’s plenty of instability to go around,’ shows the perverse incentive structure that is at the heart of the international arms market.”

Former managing director of Goldman Sachs – and head of the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London (Nomi Prins) – notes:

Throughout the century that I examined, which began with the Panic of 1907 … what I found by accessing the archives of each president is that through many events and periods, particular bankers were in constant communication [with the White House] — not just about financial and economic policy, and by extension trade policy, but also about aspects of World War I, or World War II, or the Cold War, in terms of the expansion that America was undergoing as a superpower in the world, politically, buoyed by the financial expansion of the banking community.

***

In the beginning of World War I, Woodrow Wilson had adopted initially a policy of neutrality. But the Morgan Bank, which was the most powerful bank at the time, and which wound up funding over 75 percent of the financing for the allied forces during World War I … pushed Wilson out of neutrality sooner than he might have done, because of their desire to be involved on one side of the war.

Now, on the other side of that war, for example, was the National City Bank, which, though they worked with Morgan in financing the French and the British, they also didn’t have a problem working with financing some things on the German side, as did Chase …

When Eisenhower became president … the U.S. was undergoing this expansion by providing, under his doctrine, military aid and support to countries [under] the so-called threat of being taken over by communism … What bankers did was they opened up hubs, in areas such as Cuba, in areas such as Beirut and Lebanon, where the U.S. also wanted to gain a stronghold in their Cold War fight against the Soviet Union. And so the juxtaposition of finance and foreign policy were very much aligned.

So in the ‘70s, it became less aligned, because though America was pursuing foreign policy initiatives in terms of expansion, the bankers found oil, and they made an extreme effort to activate relationships in the Middle East, that then the U.S. government followed. For example, in Saudi Arabia and so forth, they get access to oil money, and then recycle it into Latin American debt and other forms of lending throughout the globe. So that situation led the U.S. government.

Barclays Bank has agreed to pay $3.6m to Jews whose assets were seized from French branches of the British-based bank during World War II.

***

Chase Manhattan Bank, which has acknowledged seizing about 100 accounts held by Jews in its Paris branch during World War II ….”Recently unclassified reports from the US Treasury about the activities of Chase in Paris in the 1940s indicate that the local branch worked “in close collaboration with the German authorities” in freezing Jewish assets.

The relationship between Chase and the Nazis apparently was so cozy that Carlos Niedermann, the Chase branch chief in Paris, wrote his supervisor in Manhattan that the bank enjoyed “very special esteem” with top German officials and “a rapid expansion of deposits,” according to Newsweek.

Niedermann’s letter was written in May 1942 five months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. also went to war with Germany.

A French government commission, investigating the seizure of Jewish bank accounts during the Second World War, says five American banks Chase Manhattan, J.P Morgan, Guaranty Trust Co. of New York, Bank of the City of New York and American Express had taken part.

It says their Paris branches handed over to the Nazi occupiers about one-hundred such accounts.

George Bush’s grandfather [and George H.W. Bush’s father], the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings … continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act

***

The documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen’s US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

***

Bush was a founding member of the bank [UBC] … The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush’s father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany’s most powerful industrial family.

***

By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world’s largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler’s build-up to war.

Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.

***

UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler’s rise to power.

What happened to [Libya’s] Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn’t want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar.

But Jeb is not only the brother of George W. and the son of George H. W. Bush.

Jeb Bush also had close personal ties to Raul Salinas de Gortiari, brother of Mexico’s former president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari. In the 1990s, Raul the “drug kingpin”, according to Switzerland’s federal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, was one of the main figures of the Mexican Drug Cartel.

Jeb Bush –before becoming Governor of the Sunshine State– was a close friend of Raul Salinas de Gortiari (image right):

“There has also been a great deal of speculation in Mexico about the exact nature of Raul Salinas’ close friendship with former President George Bush’s son, Jeb. It is well known here that for many years the two families spent vacations together — the Salinases at Jeb Bush’s home in Miami, the Bushes at Raul’s ranch, Las Mendocinas, under the volcano in Puebla.

There are many in Mexico who believe that the relationship became a back channel for delicate and crucial negotiations between the two governments, leading up to President Bush’s sponsorship of NAFTA.” (Prominent intellectual and former foreign Minister of Mexico Jorge G. Castañeda, The Los Angeles Times. and Houston Chronicle, 9 March 1995, emphasis added)

The personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families was a matter of public record. Former President George H. W. Bush — when he worked in the oil business in Texas in the 1970s– had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and his father, Raul Salinas Lozano. (left)

Raul Salinas Lozano was the family patriarch, father of Carlos and Raul Junior. According to the former private secretary to Raul Salinas Lozano (in as statement to US authorities):

“… Mr. Salinas Lozano was a leading figure in narcotics dealingsthat also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortiari, his son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was assassinated in 1994.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997, emphasis added).

Former president George H. W. Bush and Raul Salinas Lozano were “intimo amigos”. According to former DEA official Michael Levine, the Mexican drug Cartel was a “family affair”. Both Carlos and Raul were prominent members of the Cartel. And this was known to then US Attorney General Edward Meese in 1987 one year prior to Carlos Salinas’ inauguration as the country’s president.

When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican State apparatus became criminalised with key government positions occupied by members of the Cartel. The Minister of Commerce in charge of trade negotiations leading up to the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano, father of Raul Junior the Drug kingpin and of Carlos the president.

And it is precisely during this period that the Salinas government launched a sweeping privatisation program under advice from the IMF.

The privatisation program subsequently evolved into a multibillion dollar money laundering operation. Narco-dollars were channelled towards the acquisition of State property and public utilities.

Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies, testified to the US Congress (April 14, 1994) that

“billions of dollars in state assets have gone to supporters and cronies” (Dallas Morning News, 11 August 1994).

These included the sale of Telefonos de Mexico, valued at $ 3.9 billion and purchased by a Salinas crony for $ 400 million.(Ibid).

Raul Salinas de Gortiari is the brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari, who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in December 1992 alongside US President George H. W. Bush and Canada’s Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.(image left)

In a bitter irony, it was only after this historical event, that Carlos Salinas’ family links to the drug trade through his brother Raul were revealed.

The George H. W. Bush Senior administration was fully aware of the links of the Salinas presidency to organized crime. Public opinion in the US and Canada was never informed so as not to jeopardize the signing of NAFTA:

“Other former officials say they were pressured to keep mum because Washington was obsessed with approving NAFTA”.

“The intelligence on corruption, especially by drug traffickers, has always been there,” said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA’s Dallas office from 1984 to 1994. But “we were under instructions not to say anything negative about Mexico. It was a no-no since NAFTA was a hot political football.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997)

In other words, at the time the NAFTA Agreement was signed, both Bush Senior and Mulroney were aware that one of the signatories of NAFTA, namely president Salinas de Gortiari had links to the Mexican Drug Cartel.

In 1995 in the wake of the scandal and the arrest of his brother Raul for murder, Carlos Salinas left Mexico to take up residence in Dublin. His alleged links to the Drug Cartel did not prevent him from being appointed to the Board of the Dow Jones Company on Wall Street, a position which he held until 1997:

Salinas, who left Mexico in March 1995 after his brother, Raul, was charged with masterminding the murder of a political opponent, has served on the company’s board for two years. He was questioned last year in Dublin by a Mexican prosecutor investigating the murder in March 1994 of Luis Donaldo Colosio, who wanted to succeed Salinas as president. A Dow Jones spokesman last week denied that Salinas had been forced out of an election for the new board, which will take place at the company’s annual meeting on April 16… Salinas, who negotiated Mexico’s entry into the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, was appointed to the board because of his international experience. He was unavailable for comment at his Dublin home last week.” (Sunday Times, London, 30 March 1997).

Washington has consistently denied Carlos Salinas involvement. “it was his brother Raul”, Carlos Salinas “did not know”, the American media continued to uphold Salinas as a model statesman, architect of free trade in the Americas and a friend of the Bush family.

In October 1998, The Swiss government confirmed that the brother of the former Mexican president had deposited some 100 million in drug money in Swiss banks:

“They [Swiss authorities] are confiscating the money, which they believe was part of a much larger amount paid to Raul Salinas for helping Mexican and Colombian drugs cartels during his brother’s six-year term ending in 1994. Mr Salinas’ lawyers have maintained he was legally heading an investment fund for Mexican businessmen but the Swiss federal prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, described Salinas’ business dealings as unsound, incomprehensible and contrary to customary business usage. (BBC Report)

A few months later in January 1999, after a four-year trial, Raúl Salinas de Gortari (left) was convicted of ordering the murder of his brother-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu:

“After [Carlos] Salinas left office in 1994, the Salinas family fell from grace in a swirl of drug-related corruption and crime scandals. Raúl was jailed and convicted on charges of money laundering and of masterminding the assassination of his brother-in-law; after spending 10 years in jail, Raúl was acquitted of both crimes. …

With the scandal unraveling, Jeb’s friendship with Raúl did not go unnoticed. Jeb has never denied his friendship with Raúl, who [now] keeps a low profile in Mexico.

Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for Bush, did not respond a request for comment. The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise. “I have been very disappointed by the allegations about him and his family. I never had the slightest hint of information that President Salinas was anything but totally honest,” Bush senior told me in the 1997 interview. (Dolia Estevez, Jeb Bush’s Mexican Connections, Forbes, April 7, 2015, emphasis added)

“The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise”? (Forbes, April 2015) The Bushes knew who they were all along.

Former DEA official Michael Levine confirmed that Carlos Salinas role in the Mexican drug cartel was known to US officials.

US President George H. W. Bush was regularly briefed by officials from the Department of Justice, the CIA and the DEA.

Did Jeb Bush –who is now a candidate for the White House under a Republican ticket– know about Raul’s links to the Drug Cartel?.

Was the Bush family in any way complicit?

These are issues which must be addressed and debated by the American public across the land prior to the 2016 presidential primary elections.

According to Andres Openheimer writing in the Miami Herald (February 17 1997):

“witnesses say former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari, his imprisoned brother Raul and other members of country’s ruling elite met with drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego at a Salinas family ranch; Jeb Bush admits he met with Raul Salinas several times but has never done any business with him.”

US authorities waited until after Carlos Salinas finished his presidential term to arrest Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego, who was a close collaborator of the president’s brother Raul. In turn, Raul Salinas was an “intimo amigo” of Jeb Bush :

Juan Garcia Abrego, a fugitive on the FBI’s most-wanted list, was flown to Houston late Monday, following his arrest by Mexican police … Garcia Abrego, the reputed head of Mexico’s second most powerful drug cartel, had eluded authorities on both sides of the border for years. His arrest is an enormous victory for the U.S. and Mexican governments. CNN, January 16, 2015

But there is more than meets the eye: while the Bushes and the Salinas have longstanding ties, Wall Street was also involved in the laundering of drug money:

A U.S. official said the Justice Department has made significant advances in its money-laundering investigation against Raul Salinas de Gortari and has identified several people who can testify that the former first brother received protection money from a major narcotics cartel.

If the U.S. were to indict Mr. Salinas, it could have implications for a Justice Department investigation into possible money laundering by Citibank, where Mr. Salinas had some of his accounts. Citibank, a unit of Citicorp , has denied wrongdoing. (WSW, April 23, 2015)

Raul Salinas de Gortiari was set free in 2005. All charges were dropped.

The matter involving the Bushes and the Salinas has largely been forgotten.

Meanwhile, American political history has been rewritten…

Not to mention the 1992 “Free Trade” Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed by a head of State with links to organized crime. Does that make it an illegal agreement? The legitimacy of NAFTA has so far not been the object of a legal procedure of judicial inquiry.

An “illegal NAFTA” sets the stage for the TPP and TTIP “agreements” negotiated behind closed doors.

This article was published anonymously by Oriental Review. Presumably, this was done to protect the author. The article lacks footnotes and references. Hopefully, a subsequent version will contain references. I put footnotes on Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death and the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

From Oriental Review, March 2, 2015

At this moment when Russia is being hit with a new propaganda attack over ‘political murder’ in Moscow it’s a good time to recall 12 notable US national political figures, all found murdered or suspiciously dead – Senators, Congressmen, Federal Prosecutors, Federal Judge, Governor, CIA Director – after questioning corruption or disturbing US oligarch leadership – since the 1963 JFK assassination. With 4 coup d’état ‘hits’ on the last 10 US Presidents themselves.

The list makes clear the ongoing menace of murder of any US prosecutor or national judge or politician who does not serve US ruling political families. Especially note the recent, media-hidden shooting murder of US Federal (national) Judge Roll after ruling against the US regime, along with the ‘suiciding’ deaths of two US Federal Prosecutors Ross and Colbert … ‘hits’ which keep even the US Supreme Court and all US prosecutors in terror and behaving submissively.

(1-2) Two Congressmen, Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr, House Majority Leader (right), along with Alaska Congressman Nick Begich, killed in the same plane crash, 16 October 1972; Boggs was involved in JFK assassination investigation.

(3) Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia was killed on 1 September 1983, booked onto the Korean airliner that was shot down over the ocean; McDonald had filed bills asking the US Congress to investigate the globalist Trilateral Commission and CFR (Council on Foreign Relations).

(4) Former US Senator from Texas John Tower, killed in plane crash 5 April 1991, after criticising Reagan-Bush scandals.

(5) William Colby, former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, found dead 27 April 1996, laughable story he drowned after paddling his canoe by his Maryland weekend house; Colby had made revelations critical of US policies.

(6) Sonny Bono, singer from Sonny & Cher, Congressman on key House Judiciary Committee, killed 6 January 1998, after gaining position to investigate corruption at America’s highest levels, Bono handled files on judicial corruption and the CIA drug trade … fake story that excellent skier Sonny went head-on into a tree … even ex-FBI people say it was murder.

(7) US Missouri Governor Melvin Eugene ‘Mel’ Carnahan, killed in plane crash 16 October 2000, opponent of vicious US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Carnahan won the election even after being dead.

(8) US Senator Paul Wellstone from Minnesota, killed in plane crash 25 October 2002, after leading opposition to the US Iraq War.[1]

(9) Former US Congressman Wayne Owens from Utah, found dead in Tel Aviv, Israel, 18 December 2002, while investigating the triangle of US-Israeli-Palestinian Authority corruption.

(10-11) US Federal Prosecutors Thelma Colbert, US Dept. of Justice in Fort Worth, Texas (left), and Shannon Ross, criminal chief US Attorney in Dallas, Texas, jointly involved in pursuing crimes linked to the Bush family and Novation LLC, both ‘suicided’ within weeks of each other, Colbert drowned in her swimming pool in July 2004, and Ross found dead in her home 13 September 2004, case involving Bushes buried along with them.

(12) US Federal Judge John Roll shot dead in Tucson, Arizona, 8 January 2011, shortly after ruling against Obama and the US gov’t … drugged up ‘lone gunman’ promptly supplied, ‘confessing’ and otherwise barely seen. Media almost totally obscured this story in favour of other shooting victims, because the main object was intimidating all other US judges with how they can be killed violently and with few aware of how or why they died.

The murder (6) above, of US Judiciary Congressman Bono supervising the judges, was used in turn to terrorise US Congress Judiciary Chairman John Conyers in 2008-09, and prevent him from enacting a bold plan to remove US corrupt judges, when Conyers was temporarily fooled by the hype of his fellow black Barack Obama being elected President; Conyers wife’ was jailed on charges to drive home the death threats against him.

Note too that of the last 10 US Presidents, 4 have been attacked with coup d’état removal attacks. Two Presidents were shot – John F Kennedy killed in 1963, and then Ronald Reagan in 1981, wounded by a shooter linked to the family of then Vice-President Bush. [2]

Two other US Presidents underwent CIA-tied ‘impeachment’ deceptions, first the 1974 Watergate ‘Silent Coup’ using intel officer Bob Woodward planted as a Washington Post fake ‘brave reporter’, Woodward having worked in intel directly under US Joint Chiefs military head Admiral Maurer. And then Bill Clinton in the 1990s, when he balked at plans to bomb Serbia and kill thousands of people, was hit with the ‘impeachment’ farce with agent Monica Lewinsky Clinton submitted and began bombing shortly after his stage-managed ‘acquittal’.

A few years back i red an outstanding essay by Chaim Kaupfberg on islamic terrorism,in it he mentioned that CIA Director William Colby was murdered because he was gathering evidence with the intent to expose a nation-wide paedophile ring being served to a clientele of high-profile politicians in Washington.